Strawberry Rhubarb Oatmeal

Sweet strawberries and tart rhubarb. Delicious!

For breakfast this past week, I enjoyed oatmeal with a fresh strawberry rhubarb sauce.

The sauce was very simple. Just a matter of chopping up the fruit and simmering until it was tender.

I cooked the apples, lemon juice and rhubarb for a little while first then added the strawberries later. Vanilla sugar, my new love. Good morning, sunshine!

Vegan Strawberry Rhubarb Oatmeal

For the Fruit Sauce

1/2 cup water

1 1/2 cups chopped rhubarb

1 cup sliced strawberries

1 apple peeled, cored and diced

1 tsp. lemon juice

1/2 Tablespoon vanilla sugar, or to taste

For the Oatmeal
1 cup old-fashioned oats

1/2 cup soy or rice milk

1/2 cup water

1/2 banana, mashed

1/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

For the sauce, combine the chopped fruits, water, lemon juice and sugar. Bring to a boil, and simmer on low heat while cooking the oats.

Separately, combine the water, milk, oats and salt. Simmer on low heat, until the oats thicken to a porridge like consistency. Remove from heat, and stir in the mashed banana and cinnamon.

Serve the oatmeal topped with the fruit sauce.

Makes 2 large servings.

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Fruit, Nut and Seed Granola

Several weeks ago I made Angela’s Favorite Granola.

I’ve been eating this left and right since then. It’s topped fruit and yogurt, been eaten by the handful and sprinkled over oatmeal.

For some strange reason, I never shared her recipe and my photos. Better late than never. Here’s a simple how-to to make Angela’s awesome granola.

This recipe has 4 stages: mix the dry ingredients, simmer together the wet ingredients, toss then bake.

Wet ingredients include: brown rice syrup, agave nectar, coconut oil, unsweetened applesauce, peanut butter and brown sugar

Dry ingredients include: rolled oats, raw almonds, raw walnuts, raw sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, ground flax, coconut flakes, ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, salt, raw pumpkin seeds, golden raisins and dried cranberries.

Stir together the wet and dry ingredients.

 Spread the mixture out evenly onto a lined cookie tray and bake.

Pretty, isn’t it?

Store the granola in the refrigerator and eat to your heart’s content.

For the recipe, please visit Angela’s blog.

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Lovely Spring Day

I hope your day has been as warm and enjoyable as mine.

I woke up fairly early this morning and got started right away on breakfast. Anne’s Almond Butter Banana Breakfast Bars have been on my Recipe Wish List for far too long.

These breakfast bars are so simple and so good.

  

This recipe really is as easy as mixing together a few wet and dry ingredients that you probably already have at home.

I was all out of maple syrup so the only change I made to the original recipe was to use golden syrup instead.

My apartment smelled fantastic as this was baking away.

Along with fresh brewing coffee, my apartment smelled like breakfast.

Breakfast is served!

The day continued with shopping.

First up, a visit to the fruit and vegetable lady.

Today I bought rhubarb, leeks, chives, potatoes, eggs and a beat. Spring has clearly sprung on her farm!

The rest of the afternoon included more shopping for new work shoes, a kitchen scale and a few more vegetables from the Bonn farmer’s market. At the Bonn market, I picked up fresh green asparagus (white asparagus is the norm here,) fresh spinach and a green pepper.

Walking around the beautiful city of Bonn, Germany on such a lovely, warm Spring day, I couldn’t help but smile and feel so blessed to be exactly where I am.

Sebastian met me to go to a new-to-us ethnic grocery store that my friend Josh is always talking about. Unfortunately, when I arrived at 2:26, I realized that the store closed at 2:00. Oh well.

We carried on as planned and went on a short walk along the Rhine. It seamed like everyone was out today- walking, jogging, skating, biking, rowing, you name it, the bike and foot paths were packed.

A drink was had as we watched the people pass by.

Once home, I put the fresh spinach to good use and made palak paneer for dinner. Sadly, the sun was down before the process was finished so I’ll have to wait until I can photograph the left-overs in daylight before posting the recipe. Palak paneer looks enough like baby poo in the daylight, why make it look worse at night?

After such a great day shopping alone then hanging out with my favorite person and eating great food, the highlight of my day was definitely talking to my grandma and mom on the phone today.

After 2.5 years, I’ve finally changed my phone plan to include calls to the US. My first call was to my grandparents and luckily, mom was there too. Talking to them as I cooked dinner made them feel so near to me. I love living abroad but certainly miss my friends and family back home. What a difference a phone call can make!

Now, with a cat cuddled and sleeping across my arms, I think it’s time to call this day to an end.

Happy Spring, everyone!

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Healthy Pumpkin Carrot Muffins

Pumpkin, pumpkin and more pumpkin!

Over the weekend, I cooked my first pumpkin of the season.

Slowly but surely, my pumpkin pile is dwindling.

Just look at the last 3 days’ breakfast for evidence.

Pumpkin oats with brown sugar and pecans.

Pumpkin oats with maple syrup and pecans.

  Pumpkin oats with ground flax, peanut butter and maple syrup.

Clearly, my morning pumpkin needs are being met.

But what about lunch and dinner?

If I had only thought about it earlier, I would have put pumpkin in my celeriac soup.

It was pretty amazing, even without pumpkin!

What about my lunch-time salad from yesterday?

I could have subbed pumpkin in place of the blueberries. Pumpkin would have gone well with the plum cobbler the Year 1 students made for the teachers.

I guess my pumpkin addiction will have to manifest in muffin form.

My attempt to create a Pumpkin Morning Glory Muffin was quite successful.

As an added bonus, my apartment now smells like autumn!

These muffins were tossed together using ingredients I had on hand.

Sift together the dry ingredients.

Whisk the wet ingredients together.

  Stir in the carrots.

 Add the dry ingredients.

Stir until well combined.

Chop the seeds, nuts and dried fruit.

  Fold in the nuts, seeds and fruit.

Spoon the batter into greased muffin trays and garnish with pumpkin seeds. 

Bake, cool and enjoy!

Makes 14 muffins

Ingredients

• 1 2/3 cups whole wheat flour
• 4 tsp. baking powder
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ginger
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup buttermilk (or yogurt)
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 2 large carrots, grated
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/4 cup pecans, chopped
• 1/4 cup walnuts, chopped
• 1 cup dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, apricot, etc.)
• 1 Tbsp. flaxseed, ground
• 1 Tbsp. sunflower seeds
• 1 Tbsp. pumpkin seeds plus more to garnish

Method

1. Preheat oven to 325 F. In a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, buttermilk, pumpkin, vanilla and honey. Stir in the shredded carrots.
3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet. Stir until well mixed.
4. Fold in the nuts, seeds seeds and dried fruit.
5. Bake in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the muffins.

Now please excuse me, I haven’t eaten pumpkin in the last 3 hours.

I must remedy this immediately.

Thank God for muffins!

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Food and Funnies

It’s a bit late and I have a little project I’d like to work on before the day is through, so I’m going to whiz you through today via the food I ate. I hope you will return again!

Breakfast

Overnight oats and fruit parfait.

Overnight Oat and Fruit Parfait

Ingredients

Overnight Oats

• 1/3 cup oats
• 2/3 cup strawberry yogurt
• 1/2 Tbsp. chia seeds
• 1/2 Tbsp. ground flax
• dash of salt

Fruit Salad (use the amounts you see fit or change completely if you wish!)

• watermelon
• strawberries
• apricots
• blue berries

Method

1. Mix the overnight oats ingredients in a bowl, cover and refrigerate… overnight
2. In the morning, slice up the fruit into tiny bites and toss together.
3. Layer the oat and fruit then enjoy!

What a great, cheery way to start the day!

Lunch

Smoked salmon veggie loaded sandwich, cucumbers with yogurt dill dip, apricots, and lentil salad.

The Sandwich

• Whole grain pumpkin seed bread
• spinach from my balcony garden
• shredded carrot
• cucumber
• smoked salmon
• tomato

I’d like to interrupt this feast for the eyes with an announcement:

I love teaching kids about digital photography. They are just too darn cute with their little cameras.

That’s all.

Thank you.

I ate a ton of fresh strawberries with my class during fruit snack, but none were photographed. You all know what strawberries look like.

After school, I hit up the gym! I’ve been a bit lazy lately so kicked myself back into gear today. Wowza, I’ll probably be feeling sore tomorrow.

Dinner

Grilled cheese and green beans

Grilled Cheese

• cheddar cheese
• fresh tomato
• fresh basil
• Italian seasoning
• 2 slices whole wheat bread
• olive oil spread

It’s been a good day.

Now, I need your help.

I’ve volunteered to make treats for my colleagues baby shower on Wednesday. We’re having a small staff party during lunch. I had planned to make strawberry shortcake but now she has been diagnosed with prenatal diabetes and needs to lay off the sugar and is forbidden from eating anything made with white flour.

I love a good challenge!

Thanks to Happy Herbivore, I found several healthy recipes that fit the restrictive bill. I just need your help in choosing which is best for a pregnant lady and 30+ colleagues. I think I’ll bring a fruit salad but also want to do a baked treat.

Butter Bean Cookies (a practice batch of these are in the oven right now)

Chocolate Zucchini Muffins or

Black Bean Brownies

Thanks for your help!

Now, to send you off in high spirits, I’d like to share a funny photo from the public park by my school. For some reason, I have a strange passion for no dog-poop signs. It seems that I’ve been able to collect a few from every country I visit. Funny. Gross. But true.

It wasn’t until I saw this sign that I even realized we had a domesticated-fox-pooing problem.

Have a wonderful week!

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Sushi Supper

Happy Friday!!

What are you doing to kick off your weekend?

I stayed in tonight to finish off the final reports. They are now ready to hand in first thing Monday morning. What a great feeling to be DONE!!

Although it has been a stressful week, it’s been an easy one teaching-wise. Tuesday we had a class trip, Thursday there was no school, and today was a work day only for the teachers. That means I was paid to work a full week but only did my regular teaching job two days. I guess I can’t complain about the extra time spent doing reports this week after all.

My morning started with an up-and-ready breakfast.

Overnight oats in a jar.

If we’ve ever met, you know I adore peanut butter. Always have and always will. I’ve just got to get each and every bit of the good stuff before throwing the jar into the recycling can.

My jar included:

• 1/4 cup oats
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 1/2 Tbsp. chia seeds
• 1/2 Tbsp. ground flax

All mixed up and left in the fridge overnight.

This morning I added:

• fresh strawberries
• fresh raspberries
• pumpkin seeds

All mixed up and yummy!

We had to be at work like normal today. Our sessions were run by the EAL teacher. At break time, I had a handful of fresh strawberries, a snack-sized kit-kat bar, and the last of my raspberries.

After the second session, we were allowed to work on our own doing whatever we needed to do. I was so into my work that I didn’t notice that lunch was served. In my rush to collect each and every delicious middle eastern dip and salad which was provided, I didn’t take a photo. Don’t worry, I took home left-overs so they will probably appear tomorrow. The lunch was GOOD!

I spent the rest of the work day working on writing the reports for my art students and collecting summer themed stories, jokes, and songs for our final assembly.

My after-school snack was a Coconut Kefir Smoothie

Smoothie Stuff

• 1 frozen banana
• 1 cup frozen strawberries
• 1 cup kefir
• 1/8 cup orange juice
• 1.5 Tbsp. chocolate protein powder
• 1 Tbsp. coconut powder

All blended up until creamy.

After drinking that beauty, I buckled down to finish my final reports. After a few hours, I needed a break and a meal.

A sushi supper it was!

Now I’m no sushi pro, but I’m happy to share my way of rollin’.

Step-by-Step Sushi

1. Prepare your sushi rice according to package instructions.

For 2 rolls, I used the proportion of 1/2 cup sushi rice to 3/4 cup water. Once the rice was cooked, I added a sprinkle of salt and sugar. Allow the rice to completely cool.

2. Prepare your nori, veggies and protein

Lay your nori shiny-side-down on the rolling mat. Thinly slice your chosen veggies such as carrot, cucumber, avocado, and leftover grilled asparagus. Smoked salmon was my protein of choice.

3. Spread the rice

Evenly spread the cooled rice over the nori. Beneath my rice today is a thin layer of cream cheese. You can take it or leave it when making your own.

4. Lay out the goodies.

About 1/2-1 inch from the bottom of the nori, layer your protein and veggies. Try to keep it fairly compact- this will help in the next step.

5. Press, push, pull and roll

No action shots (my hands were busy) but after carefully folding the edge over your line of goodies, carefully push the ingredients together and you roll the ingredients tightly together.

6. Slice and plate

Use a very sharp wet knife to slice the rolls. You should get between 8-10 bites per roll.

After struggling to get a decent photo of the sushi in chop sticks (Hurry up and take the photo before it ‘SPLASH’ falls into the soy sauce), we settled on a finger food photo.

Isn’t it pretty?

Sushi is quite simple to make at home. I encourage you to give it a try this weekend!

Dessert was a nibble of dark chocolate and a huge wedge of watermelon.

I didn’t realize how much fruit I ate today! Yikes! Between the fruit and the chocolate, my body must be pulsing with sugar, talk about a high glycemic diet!

Questions

1. What is your favorite type of sushi?

2. Do you have a favorite summer-themed song, poem, story, or joke? Your suggestions might just appear in my class’s summer assembly!

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You are what you eat

If it’s true that you are what you eat, by the time I wake up tomorrow, I expect to be a heap of goat’s cheese.

Hopefully the balance from my other eats will save me from this cheesy destiny.

Breakfast

Coffee Oats

1/4 cup oats, milk, coffee

1 T. ground flax

1/2 tsp. hazelnut flavored coffee syrup

cinnamon, coconut flakes, flax, and hemp

home made almond butter

Lunch

Leftover mushroom ravioli topped with steamed broccoli and tomato basil sauce

Lunch was another lunch date with my students. Today I was finally told that I do sometimes eat “normal” food.

I had an apple after school while marking work then headed home to tackle the huge pile of dishes I’ve allowed to accumulate over the last 2 days. Yuck! I’ve just felt so blah lately that my Suzy homemaker ambitions have slacked off.

After 2 days of super gluing, I think I’ve fixed the shelf that broke in my refrigerator earlier this week. While placing my condiments back in their place (in a much more weight balanced way,) I decided to eliminate one more jar by scooping out the delicious feta and herb bits in the bottom of my empty Patros jar.

Yes, I save empty jars to eat the herby bits at the bottom.

Later, I met up with some friends for a bit of pool at the Irish pub and then dinner at a new Turkish restaurant in town.

It was another beautiful day here in Germany, this is the view from my apartment building. I can see 2 different castles from my home. It gives me goosebumps of excitement almost every morning.  Pinch me, is this really my home?

Zoe and Will strategizing their next moves.

The best part of the meal- hot sesame seed rolls with garlic herb butter.

Appetizer of  herbed goat’s cheese cooked two ways. Good but a bit too salty.

Turkish take on eggplant parmesan. Eggplant and, you guessed it, goat cheese baked in a tomato cream sauce.

Dinner was great, as was the company. We laughed so much the chef came out to meet us. I think he was just curious as to who was enjoying his restaurant so much. Either that, or as Zoe suggested, he thought I was a food critic what with the picture-taking and all. (I’ve not told any of them about the blog… so I’m just strangely artistic to them.) I would definitely go back again. Next time, I think I’ll order a small salad, eat loads of the bread rolls, and then try the desert! Can we say baklava?

Thank you to everyone for your supportive comments yesterday. Your kind words of encouragement and prayers mean a lot to me. Today I woke up in a lot of pain but have been taking the muscle relaxant pills and ibuprofen which have helped. Hopefully a good night’s sleep will continue the healing process.

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The Bakery is Open

Wow! What a day! What a week!

As I was walking home today, my mind traced back to the very beginning of the morning. The kindergarten students came for a visit to my classroom to be read to by my students. Suddenly I thought, wow, that was today! It already feels like weeks ago! Yes, it has been one of those days! Busy, busy, busy.

I started off with the usual bowl of steaming oatmeal. Topped today with  strawberries, flax, hemp, and almond butter. Accompanied by frothy coffee, naturally.

As I mentioned, the Kindergarten kids came up first thing this morning. It was really cute watching my students care for the younger kids. They did a great job reading with excitement and a variety of character voices. So proud. I was trying to capture the moment by snapping pictures between nose-picking. I really don’t believe I posses the patients to teach that age level. I want to teach about social responsibility… and not in the sense of being aware of where you wipe or don’t wipe your nose nuggets.

The morning continued in a crazy busy way with putting together our class skeleton! We are now beginning a study of skeletons and my students need to learn the bones of the human body. Each kid was assigned a bone or bone group to create for a class compiled life-sized skeleton. It turned out pretty well! I have such a creative and resourceful group of students! Again, so proud!

Morning snack was another White Chocolate Macadamia Granola Bar- so, so good!

Lunch was my much anticipated Beetroot Hummus. I had enough to share with my colleagues. I was surprised that so many people actually tried it. Apparently it was well received as I came home with an empty bowl.

I ate twice that amount of beautiful bright  hummus, almost all of the veggies, and the whole homemade honey wheat pitta. Kim said she could have eaten the whole bowl with a spoon… she’s known to eat a whole jar of Nutella or jam in one sitting. I informed her that this would be a much healthier option.

Fridays are always extra exciting in our class as we have a “Mystery Reader.” Any parent, Grandparent, Aunt, Uncle, neighbor, or older sibling can volunteer to be a Mystery Reader. Before someone comes to read to the class, they create 5 clues. I read the clues and the kids try to figure out who it is before they come. Today’s Mystery Reader was a mom- her son didn’t even look at the book, he just kept staring at his mother with a huge grin. Too cute.

Heading into the afternoon, things didn’t slow down. We went from one mother to another. Another mother came in to talk about our skeleton with the class. She was nervous about doing the talk in English but did a fantastic job! Everyone was completely enthralled as she talked about what exactly our bones do for us. Once she was done and I had the class to myself again, we busted out singing my more advanced rendition of “head, shoulders, knees and toes.” I affectionately call the song “Cranium, clavicle, pelvis, phalanges.” And yes, there are dance moves to accompany.

After-school- pre-tutoring snack was an apple.

Once home, the bakery was opened! Sebastian suggested making Pretend  Paneer Masala for dinner. Since our local grocery store stopped carrying naan bread, I decided to make some myself. The recipe I followed suggested cooking the bread in a grill. It is still winter here so I opted to use the cast iron pan. It worked like a dream!

I did the bread and Sebastian did the rest.

This photo certainly doesn’t do our delicious dinner justice. It was amazing! Sebastian makes a killer masala!

Since I was in bread baking mode I also made another batch of pita bread.

Apparently the cats were curious about the resting and rising pita bread. Luckily it was covered by a towel!

Final bakery production for the evening: 14 buttery mini- naan and 6 pitas.

The Bakery is Closed. Good night!

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Time trouble

I have always had trouble with time.

Keeping on time

Being on time

Predicting the amount of time an activity will take

Today- I add a new time trouble- Telling time

One would not expect a teacher to have trouble telling time, but two instances today made me very aware that I can not accurately tell time.

Experience #1. The new German math teacher asked me what time her lesson with my students was to end.

“11:45. Oh wait, (frantically looking at my time-table) oh, no, it’s actually 10:45. Just go by the bell, that’s what I do.”

Probably not the best, most professional, “I have it all together,” first impression.

Experience #2. During our Spring is almost here let’s go outside for PE nature walk, I rushed my students back to school (as in we ran for one block) when I noticed that the day would end in 5 minutes. Only to get to school and hear no bell. Weird. I looked again more carefully. Minute hand= 15. That’s correct. Hour hand=2. Oops, I expected to see 3. Apparently I had overestimated the amount of time 2 science experiments took and was off by ONE HOUR all afternoon.

This morning my oats took longer to cook than I had expected. They also didn’t taste as good as I had hoped.

Lemon Poppy Seed Oats

Don’t try this at home… it isn’t worth it!

1/4 cup each of oats, water, milk

1 tsp. wheat germ

dash salt

1/2 Tbsp poppy seeds

1/2 mashed banana

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1 spoon peanut butter

ground flax

At least my coffee never fails me!

Luckily, I made it in time to both put together and enjoy this beautiful tuna salad salad for lunch.

Lettuce, shredded carrot, cucumber, tuna salad made with tuna, light mayo, italian seasonings, and pepper, along with a slice of “Farmer’s Bread” – literal translation.

One thing I am good at is finding time for chocolate!

Funny Fact: A few years ago a survey showed that German children believe cows are purple. This product is to blame.

Class fruit snack happened on time- well not really.

I was able to hitch a ride with a colleague to the local hardware store- to save a bit of time this afternoon.

I spent €50 on duct tape for a class project. Yes,€50. Note to self, never plan a project using affordable and easy to find American products. They are neither affordable nor easy to find in Germany.

I munched on a roasted red pepper baguette from the bakery to fuel me before hitting up the gym.

Unfortunately, while in the rush of packing my gym bag, I forgot my sports bra. Not good. I took it easy- bike and treadmill for 45 minutes then called it a night.

Dinner was a time-saving fruit salad.

Lettuce, two furry kiwis, 4 strawberries, 1/2 avocado, roasted pecans, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, melted goat’s cheese, and balsamic glaze.

Delicious.

I’m now in the process of making sunflower seed butter and doing dishes. Both are taking longer than I had expected. After that I look forward to spending some quality time with my fellow bloggers!

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Night Off

It may be just past 8:30, but I’ve already got visions of sugar plumbs dancing in my head.

Today was exhausting- of the “I love my job, my whole body hurts from laughing and smiling all day” variety. I was having so much fun at one point that I was kicked out of my own classroom for disturbing the other groups. (Don’t worry, the special education coordinator and my teaching assistant were the ones who gave me the boot.)

I can’t wait to climb into bed with a hot cup of tea! Reading will certainly follow before my eyelids become too heavy.

So, before I take the night off, I want to share (most of) my eats from the day.

Coffee with frothy milk and cinnamon.

Pumpkin oats with pecans.

Lunch was leftover couscous from last night. No photo.

After school snack of bread, cheese, and red wine.

Veggie loaded baked noodles with tofu.

That will do it for me today! Early to bed will hopefully = early to rise; I have a morning work out planned!

Question: Are you happy in your current job? What is your dream job?

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